Geoff Frost is a bike shop manager, butterfly gardener, pine cone jewelry designer and, first and foremost, didgeridoo craftsman. Didger-what? We’ll get to that in a moment.

Now he just added another job title to his resume: Beekeeper.

Geoff Frost next to the bee box setup in the yard at his home in Tustin, July, 15, 2019.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

A wild honey bee is attracted by the Milkweed flowers growing in the front yard of Geoff Frost’s home, July 15, 2019.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

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Geoff Frost stands next to one of the wall decorations he makes out of Tristar vacuums, originally built in Anaheim, at his home in Tustin, July 15, 2019.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

Geoff Frost shows the bee box setup in the yard at his home in Tustin, July, 15, 2019.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

Wild honey bees make their home in a bee box setup at the home of Geoff Frost in Tustin, July 15, 2019.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

A wild honey bee is attracted by the Milkweed flowers growing in the front yard of Geoff Frost’s home, July 15, 2019.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

Geoff Frost holds a couple of didgeridoos, July 15, 2019, he made by hand at his home, decorated by his other artwork, in Tustin.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

An Agave Cane Geoff Frost uses to make didgeridoos at his home in Tustin.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

Geoff Frost holds a couple of didgeridoos, July 15, 2019, he made by hand at his home, decorated by his other artwork, in Tustin. His dog, Samba, a Chihuahua Beagle mix, is sleeping behind him, right.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

A collection of handmade art decorations and pendants made by Geoff Frost at his home in Tustin.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

Twenty years ago, Frost purchased a charming Old Town Tustin house with a front yard bigger than the building. He turned his picket-fenced property into a sanctuary for bugs and birds, populated with the plants they love – milkweed, salvia, lavender.

“I buy them for cheap from the half-dead rack at Home Depot,” Frost said.

Last week, a swarm of honeybees inconveniently set up camp near his next-door neighbor’s front porch. “He didn’t mind, but he was worried that his lawn crew would disturb them,” Frost said.

So his girlfriend’s brother, who is experienced in this sort of thing, brought over a pine apiary about the size of an orange crate. Dressed in a beekeeping suit, he transferred the hives to the box – which now sits on Frost’s side of the fence.

Over the past few days, thousands of bees have found their way to the new and safer shelter. They peacefully buzz in and out of cracks, spreading pollen from here to there.

“We need bees,” Frost said. “Do I think this is going to make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things? No, but you gotta try.”

While bumblebees are more at risk than honeybees due to pesticides and loss of habitation, all bees merit concern, said Elena Nino, an apiculturist at UC Davis.

“Honeybees are the top pollinators for many of our crops and flowers,” Nino said. “Honeybees naturally die off over the winter, but this past year, we saw higher losses than usual. We would love it if people would contact a swarm-removal service rather than just destroy bees.”

Manager of the Path Bike Shop in Tustin, Frost lives among his whimsical artwork with two old dogs named Trinity and Samba. His living room walls feature what appear to be African masks. On closer inspection, each mask is a hodgepodge of vintage vacuum cleaner parts.

Frost finds on eBay TriStar vacuums manufactured between the 1940s and 1980s, and converts their sturdy metal canisters into faces. Then he adds mountain bike springs, peacock feathers, marble eyes, antlers and other unexpected items to embellish the fanciful decorations. One mask has a “secret compartment” that opens to a hidden Buddha figurine.

The mask series got underway a few months ago. Once he completes about a dozen faces, he plans to start selling them.

He wasn’t always so creative, Frost claimed.

Now 50, the Connecticut native landed in California as a jet mechanic at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro. Later, he worked in sales for Ingram Micro.

“I was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism,” he said. “I came home and decided I didn’t want to do the corporate thing anymore.”

So he switched to a less stressful day job. On the side, he produces didgeridoos.

Developed centuries ago by Indigenous Australians, the instruments are now played by avant-garde musicians around the world. The long woodwind is known for its deep, meditative tone.

Frost makes some of his didgeridoos the traditional way, from eucalyptus tree branches hollowed out by termites. Others are constructed from agave stalks, and others still from gourds he scrapes out and pieces together into four-foot long pipes.

The final products, polished to a sheen, run around $500 or more.

Although his didgeridoos are pretty popular, Frost said he doesn’t worry about keeping up with demand.

“I don’t want to have to make them,” he said. “I make them because I want to.”

And now Frost has that new project – bees, from which he hopes to extract honey soon.

After majoring in journalism at the University of Texas, Susan Christian Goulding got her start as a copy editor and reporter at the (late, great) Los Angeles Herald Examiner. She then worked at the (late, great) Santa Monica Outlook and the Daily Breeze as a features editor, writer and columnist. She moved to the Orange County bureau of the Los Angeles Times as a features and business writer. After that five-year stint, she worked as a correspondent for People magazine and a regular freelancer for Readers Digest while raising her two kids, Erin and Matt. During this time, she also wrote a weekly column for the Daily Breeze. Next, she gave up all possibility of free time and earned a teaching credential and masters at UCI. She taught English for four often rewarding and always challenging years in Compton, then at LMU and El Camino College. Missing journalism, Goulding circled back to her original career last year, joining the Orange County Register as a reporter. She also enjoys her return to column writing for the newspaper's OC Home magazine.

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